To:G. V. CHICHERIN[1]

Written:Written on May 16, 1918Published:First published in 1959 inLenin Miscellany XXXVI.

      Printed from the original.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1975,

      Moscow,Volume 44,

      page88b.Translated:Clemens DuttTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive.You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
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Inmy opinion, the Brest treaty cannot forbid us to
combat, pirate-insurgents (armed merchant vessels),||and it is
necessary tofind a formfor our naval forces to give an
armed rebuff to the rebels.

[1]Thisnote to G. V. Chicherin was written following the receipt
of a report that troops of the Transcaucasian bourgeois
government, supported by a flotilla of armed merchant vessels, were
advancing on Sukhum, creating a threat to the entire Black Sea
coast. In the draft of a telegram submitted to Lenin, which was
addressed to Sablin, Chief of the Naval Forces of the Black Sea
Fleet, the latter was instructed to arm a number of Soviet merchant
ships and send them for the defence of Sukhum.

OnMay 20, 1918, the Soviet Government sent a Note to the
German Government protesting against the German military
authorities conniving at the actions of the armed merchant ships
of “the so-called Transcaucasian government, which is
recognised by absolutely nobody in Transcaucasia”.